Stocks plunged at the opening bell and oil prices surged higher Thursday morning, after President Donald Trump’s address to the nation about the Iran war failed to reassure markets that the fighting would be over soon.
The S&P 500 dropped 1.3%, the Nasdaq Composite slid 1.8% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 625 points. The Russell 2000 index, which tracks smaller companies, fell 1.6%.
In his speech Wednesday, Trump said the war would end “shortly,” but he pledged to conduct additional “extremely hard” strikes on Iran “over the next two to three weeks.”
Missing from Trump’s address was any structured path to a ceasefire. He likewise did not put forth a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which more than 20% of the world’s oil supply typically passes. “The strait will open up naturally,” he said.
The president also emphasized that the war will continue until the U.S. military’s objectives were “fully achieved.”
Oil prices began rising while Trump was speaking Wednesday night and have kept climbing since, reversing two days of declines.
U.S. crude oil surged 12% to more than $113 per barrel. Brent, the international oil benchmark, jumped 8% to more than $109 per barrel. Heating oil, a proxy for jet fuel, and natural gas prices also rose.
On Thursday, the national average price per gallon of unleaded gas hit $4.08, up from $2.98 before the war.
“Motorists could start seeing oil’s surge show up at the pump starting around mid-day” today, GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan said on X.
The “markets wanted something different,” UBS Global Wealth Management CIO Paul Donovan wrote in a note Thursday. “U.S. escalation (however short-lived) risks being met with an Iranian response, threatening more infrastructure damage in the Gulf.”
On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper hosted a video call with 35 nations, including a number of Gulf states, to discuss how to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The United States did not attend that meeting, according to Reuters.
On the call, Cooper indicated that the war would need to ease before deploying “our collective defensive military capabilities,” according to NBC News partner Sky News.
U.S. government bonds also fell Thursday, sending yields higher, as the spike in energy prices continues to cause fears over renewed inflation. The 10-year Treasury yield, which influences consumer mortgage rates, rose to around 4.37%.
Currently, a 30-year fixed rate mortgage is averaging 6.45%. The day before the war began, the average rate was 5.99%, according to Mortgage News Daily.
On Wednesday, Bank of America analysts predicted that headline inflation as measured by the Fed’s favored PCE index would “surge imminently” and peak at close to 4% this quarter. PCE was 2.8% in January, its most recent update.
Inflation has already started jumping overseas Eurozone inflation in March surged to 2.5%, from 1.9% in February.
Thursday also marks the final trading session of the week for equities and stock futures, because U.S. markets will be closed for Good Friday.
Often before a long weekend, and especially during times of geopolitical unrest, selling pressure can increase from investors who don’t want to risk being trapped in an investment for three days straight while events on the ground are moving swiftly.
